[Mediahound]

Thanks, was aware you can use any headphone, but doesn’t the AirPods have specific technology for listening to Dolby Atmos & spatial sound, or whatever the term is ! ?

The spatial audio is Apple's own tech., and indeed exclusive to AirPods or AirPods Max.

That's different that Dolby Atmos although may work with it.

 

[oryan_dunn]

Thanks, was aware you can use any headphone, but doesn’t the AirPods have specific technology for listening to Dolby Atmos & spatial sound, or whatever the term is ! ?

Yeah, the spatial audio pegged to a device screen is limited to headphones with the UWB chips.

 

[retskrad]

This is why "audiophile" is a joke term among my audio engineering collegues at work.

It is not biologically possible for us (unless one is an alien) to hear above 22kHz. 44.1kHz is enough to record in perfect fidelity. For strictly listening purposes, 192kHz/24bit is wasteful, just extreme overkill because "bigger numbers = more good". Apple should be ashamed of selling snake oil.

People can't even detect a difference between 320kbps MP3s and source-quality FLAC/ALAC/WAV/PCM on very good headphone and speaker setups. Good quality MP3/AAC is all one needs for AirPod Max and the bluetooth protocol can easily handle those bitrates.

 

[oryan_dunn]

This is why "audiophile" is a joke term among my audio engineering collegues at work.

It is not biologically possible for us (unless one is an alien) to hear above 22kHz. 44.1kHz is enough to record in perfect fidelity. For strictly listening purposes, 192kHz/24bit is wasteful, just extreme overkill because "bigger numbers = more good". Apple should be ashamed of selling snake oil.

People can't even detect a difference between 320kbps MP3s and source-quality FLAC/ALAC/WAV/PCM on very good headphone and speaker setups. Good quality MP3/AAC is all one needs for AirPod Max and the bluetooth protocol can easily handle those bitrates.

Given that it's no extra charge for the hi-res, if people think they can hear a difference and want to eat up their bandwidth, then that's up to them. I think it's just a marketing tool to pull those people to Apple Music, for no real extra cost to Apple. 99%.9% of Apple users won't care at all about this lossless. Dolby Atmos will have a bigger affect on what they hear and will be the bigger news when this update drops.

 

[Mediahound]

Masters are done in high res and rarely in just 16/44.1k.

If we can get streaming that is closest to the master, for no additional cost, there is not really any downside.

 

[Author]

Masters are done in high res and rarely in just 16/44.1k.

If we can get streaming that is closest to the master, for no additional cost, there is not really any downside.

Or upside (organically speaking).

 

[tinyman392]

Masters are done in high res and rarely in just 16/44.1k.

If we can get streaming that is closest to the master, for no additional cost, there is not really any downside.

The only downside is bandwidth. And if you do offline storage, they eat up at least 2.5-3x more space.

 

[retskrad]

Future AirPods update may enable Lossless audio via AirPlay​

From the article:

The rumor: Streaming audio to AirPods will get a major update in the future, according to Jon Prosser (77.8% accurate) on the Genius Bar podcast.

• While Bluetooth is too technically limited to support lossless audio streaming, a different codec or firmware update could be released in the future to support the higher bandwidth needed to stream HiFi audio on AirPods
• Apple confirmed yesterday that no AirPods currently support lossless audio in any way, but used the word “currently”

Our take: Before announcing AirTag, Apple announced a broader Find My Network with support for 3rd party accessories: Prosser suggests that in light of recent anti-trust investigations, Apple is doing the same thing here. Announce support for lossless audio that works with 3rd-party devices weeks ahead of announcing a new proprietary Apple format for streaming HiFi music. To me, this makes a lot of sense as there’s no way Apple would intentionally misfire this intentionally.

 

[Mediahound]

Seems likely. If they create a new BT protocol that can support lossless and even high res. that will be industry-leading.

 

[yticolev]

I’ve just seen this.....my first question is, are AirPod Max headphones any good ?? Do you get drop outs at all in sound ?

To summarize the last 4,100 posts, there has not been a single complaint of drop outs. In earlier BT versions before AirPods, there were complaints. Mostly it is about good pairing these days, with Apple products working well within the Apple ecosystem.

 

[yticolev]

It is not biologically possible for us (unless one is an alien) to hear above 22kHz. 44.1kHz is enough to record in perfect fidelity.

Isn't there an argument for higher frequency response for better reproduction of undertones in the audible range?

 

[MICHAELSD]

Future AirPods update may enable Lossless audio via AirPlay​

From the article:

The rumor: Streaming audio to AirPods will get a major update in the future, according to Jon Prosser (77.8% accurate) on the Genius Bar podcast.

• While Bluetooth is too technically limited to support lossless audio streaming, a different codec or firmware update could be released in the future to support the higher bandwidth needed to stream HiFi audio on AirPods
• Apple confirmed yesterday that no AirPods currently support lossless audio in any way, but used the word “currently”

Our take: Before announcing AirTag, Apple announced a broader Find My Network with support for 3rd party accessories: Prosser suggests that in light of recent anti-trust investigations, Apple is doing the same thing here. Announce support for lossless audio that works with 3rd-party devices weeks ahead of announcing a new proprietary Apple format for streaming HiFi music. To me, this makes a lot of sense as there’s no way Apple would intentionally misfire this intentionally.

There’s no way they’d go to the trouble of adding Apple Lossless to Apple Music for all users to enjoy after pushing wireless for years and not release AirPods/Beats headphones that support some form of wireless streaming. AirPlay can already support it.

Otherwise we’ll just have a bunch of consumers unnecessarily streaming Hi-Res music to their AirPods over 264kbps AAC thinking they’re getting a better experience.

 

[Mediahound]

There’s no way they’d go to the trouble of adding Apple Lossless to Apple Music for all users to enjoy after pushing wireless for years and not release AirPods/Beats headphones that support some form of wireless streaming. AirPlay can already support it.

Otherwise we’ll just have a bunch of consumers unnecessarily streaming Hi-Res music to their AirPods over 264kbps AAC thinking they’re getting a better experience.

They may be more banking on how impressed consumers will like the spatial audio and Dolby Atmos versus the lossless and high res., which is likely.

After all, most consumers don't even care that much about lossless and high res., as long as the music sounds halfway decent to them, as proven out by how popular Spotify has become without even having lossless.

 

[clerkpalmer]

There’s no way they’d go to the trouble of adding Apple Lossless to Apple Music for all users to enjoy after pushing wireless for years and not release AirPods/Beats headphones that support some form of wireless streaming. AirPlay can already support it.

Otherwise we’ll just have a bunch of consumers unnecessarily streaming Hi-Res music to their AirPods over 264kbps AAC thinking they’re getting a better experience.

Airplay seems like a decent bet. I remain befuddled at yesterday’s announcement as well. Lossless but only wired ... except years ago Apple declared wires dead. Makes absolutely no sense.

 

[oryan_dunn]

There’s no way they’d go to the trouble of adding Apple Lossless to Apple Music for all users to enjoy after pushing wireless for years and not release AirPods/Beats headphones that support some form of wireless streaming. AirPlay can already support it.

Otherwise we’ll just have a bunch of consumers unnecessarily streaming Hi-Res music to their AirPods over 264kbps AAC thinking they’re getting a better experience.

Airplay seems like a decent bet. I remain befuddled at yesterday’s announcement as well. Lossless but only wired ... except years ago Apple declared wires dead. Makes absolutely no sense.

Airplay is a streaming tech over TCP/IP, and none of the existing Apple/Beats headphones have WiFi chips. Unless they can figure out how to squeeze 16/44.1 ALAC over Bluetooth (unlikely), and they are going to bring lossless to existing headphones, it would have to be over the ultra wideband.